Hope you like it...as always, let me know what you think...
-- Chronic --
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It was winter. The chirpy meteorologist on Channel 11 said that the mercury would dip to 12-below today and the weekend wouldn't be much better.
It couldn't have been much worse.
I'm the guy who works the night shift down Miller's Tool and Die. Like Harry Chapin said, "I watch the metal rustin'...I watch the time go by..." Unfortunately, there were no mysterious women at the diner that night to love me and leave lonely. Just a plain, tired looking waitress named Tracy and the Mexicans who, you know, sling the hash and stuff, back there in the back.
That 12-below morning I finish up my usual breakfast -- a stack of buttermilks and a side of corned beef hash -- and head outside. It really is cold now, the kind of cold where even the air feels hard, like you could crack it in your teeth. I pull my collar up and walk fast, head down like Joe Frazier, and go straight at my Olds.
"Gotta light?"
I look up from my crouch and shove my hands in my jacket pocket. There's an old guy leaning on my car. No hat, no jacket, just an gray sweatshirt. I said he's old but he's tough old. Square jaw, square military haircut, big, weathered hands holding a pack of Marlboro's. He might have been an old Marlboro man for all I know.
"Naw," I said. "Sorry, buddy." I stopped in front of him. Expected him to get the hell away from my car. I looked him in the eye. He held my stare. I took a step back.
"What do you want?" I said, my voice almost cracking. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me, why I was so spooked. I would have wondered more, but I was too busy being spooked.
"I need a ride. You're gonna give me a ride."
"Where're we going?" I said, playing along.
"I'll drive." You know, I didn't even look to see if he had a gun or a knife or something. His voice was a command.
"What the hell," I said, "I got nothing better to do." I tossed him the keys and got in the car.
After a few coughs and gasps, the Olds engine turned over and we got on the highway. The old man didn't say anything for awhile.
"You gonna tell me where we're going?" I finally said.
"Back to work."
"My work?"
"Yeah."
"What, you think you're gonna rob the place? There's nothing to steal there."
"We're gonna blow it up."
"With what?" I thought I'd play it cool.
"Stuff I got in the trunk."
"My trunk?" He didn't respond. He had this sly little smile. Made me want to punch him. But he was driving.
"So," I said, calm as I could be. "I'll bite. Why are we blowing up Miller's Tool and Die."
"Do you like it there?"
"It's OK. I do what I have to." Where was he going with this?
"No. Do you like it there? Is this the life you imagined? As a kid, did you dream about this?"
"About what? Doing security on the late shift? Who would dream about that?" Not me. First I was gonna be a cop. Then I joined the army when I got out of high school. Signed up to be a paratrooper but I washed out. Too much drinking. I guess I didn't apply myself.
"It's time for a fresh start, Joe." How'd he know my name?
"Who are you, my guardian angel?"
"Ha. Yeah. Something like that."
"Ha...what? Something like what?"
"I'm here to take care of you, Joe. It's time to start over."
Clearly, this guy was insane. I'll tell you, I thought about jumping out of the car right then. But we were going down the highway about about 80. I wasn't dead yet, so I decided I'd let this thing play out a little longer.
"I don't need anyone to take care of me. Who the hell are you?" The old man just laughed. "Come on!" I was yelling now. "What's your name?"
"Please...allow me to introduce myself," he said, still laughing. Or maybe he sang. I kind of think he sang it.
We careened off the exit without slowing down. We skidded around the corner and down the service road that led to the plant.
"We all have dreams, Joe," the old man said, and it was almost like he had a tear in his eye. But he wasn't sad. "We all have dreams. We want to be powerful. Men of action. We want to fly. Leap tall buildings. Right wrongs. But we grow up. And we do what we can. We submit. We let teachers tell us our potential. We let bosses rule our days and spouses rule our nights. But you can take it all back. You can start over Joe. What would you do, Joe, if you could start over?"
I shook my head. I think I'd drifted off while he talked. I was thinking about Mayzie and how she said goodbye when she went to college and I went into the army. I wondered how she was doing. You know, I bet she has a half-dozen kids by now.
"I don't know. Maybe college. Maybe I'd have tried a little harder. You know, done a little more." I admit it - I was flailing around ... I didn't know what to say. "I have to tell you, I don't really think about it."
"You think about it, Joe. Right now. You think about it."
And, you know, as he parked the car got out and pulled a wooden packing crate out of the trunk, my trunk, I guess I did think about it a little bit. I mean, I didn't know what the hell this guy was talking about, but I thought about it. Wouldn't you? And you know, I made my choices a long time ago. I can live with what I'm doing.
I mean, it's lonely. I live alone. I work at night. Not much chance to meet women that way. Haven't really been with anyone in a long time. I guess that's why I still talk to Mayzie. Not that she hears me - I'm not sure where she is now. My boss is a jerk, but I can take it. The job, well the job's a job. It's not police work but it's security. And it's secure. But damn, it's boring. I mean, can you imagine, sitting in that chair, eight hours, every night, staring at the same four TVs, the same four channels, where nothing moves. Eight hours a day. Nothing moves. I don't even know what they do there -- I never see anyone working there. It's must me and all those machines, all that metal.
"Help me out with this, Joe." And the old man takes out this contraption. All wires and tubes and stuff. Hell, I mean, I knew what it was. I helped him take it out of the crate. Why? I don't know... it was like I was hypnotized. Not really, but like that. Like the more he talks the more I think and the more I think the more I notice that all I hear is this voice and this voice commands. You know?
Your right. I don't either.
We take the ... thing ... over to my desk. I wonder where Matty is, but not for very long -- there he is, laying just like you found him behind the desk, blood still gushing out the tear across his throat.
"Open up," the old man said, and without even thinking, I pressed the button and the doors buzzed open. I know, I know ... I'm the security guy ... I never have to deal with a single threat in eight years, and I let this guy in.
So we put the thing down in the lobby. There must have been five or six bodies there, just like Matty's. He unrolls this coil of blasting cord... yeah, that's what it was... and I follow him. He rolls it right out of the lobby and all the way into the parking lot. He attaches the cord to he detonator. It was a classic ... you know the kind... the big red box with the plunger... push it down and kaboom! I felt like Bugs Bunny was going pop out of the bushes.
And then he stands up and looks at me.
"Joe, this is it," he says. "This is your chance, Joe. A new beginning. A fresh start. Everything is new. Clean slate. You stand up, you push it down and everything old is new again. You'll decide. You'll choose your own destiny. You'll be cleansed in fire and made whole again. You'll be you, but more so. For the first time, you'll be alive."
"So..."
"So all you have to do is push here. Just push here."
And I stared at it for a long time. I don't know how long. Could have been hours for all I know. And then, I feel his hand. It's big, rough. He grabs me by the wrist and puts my hand on the plunger.
"It's your choice," he says.
Well. What would you have done?
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